Dr. Alexey Root

Dr. Root asked how to move a bishop from one location to another in the fewest number of moves.For example, "How can you move a bishop from f1 to f5?" (Similar drill will be done for capturing on f5). The student should respond either, "Bf1-d3-f5" or "Bf1-h3-f5." After one of those possible best responses, Dr. Root moved the bishop as indicated.

Practice: Then students partnered up to try this with each other. One student chose a place for the bishop to be and a place for it to move to. Then that second student moved the bishop in the fewest number of moves. Then students set up bishop mazes for each other. The mazes lesson plan is in more detail in Dr. Root’s book Science, Math, Checkmate: 32 Chess Activities for Inquiry and Problem Solving, Mazes and Monsters lesson activity.

For Intermediate and Advanced Players:

Students tried Exercise 7 “Queen versus Rook and Bishop.” from Read, Write, Checkmate: Enrich Literacy with Chess Activities. Then students practiced the king and queen against king checkmate.

While students were practicing those drills, Dr. Root called individual students over to her to have them show how en passant works.